Bowing Journals | Top | << Back | Next >> | End
Heng Ch'au
Tuesday
February 21, 1978
Cold ocean fog from dawn to dusk. It's like bowing in empty space. Suddenly there's a sound as a blur of colored metal comes flying by and disappears into the silent, cotton-thick cloud all around us. The conditioned and temporary nature of all things stands out. Everything appears and disappears before our eyes.
Man: what has attracted your attention mostly so far on this trip?
Monk: the bowing.
Man: have you seen some unusual things and had strange experiences?
Monk: everything's made from the mind.
Man: all made from the mind, really! ?
Monk: when our minds are thinking strange and unusual thoughts, then we see unusual things and have strange experiences. When our minds are straight and wholesome, then what we experience is straight and wholesome.
Man: but don't you notice a lot of other things? I mean isn't your attention drawn to what's around you?
Monk: the whole idea is to return the light and illumine within. Sure, we notice things and get distracted, but this is the cause of confusion. Our work is to hold our minds to a single condition so we aren't so muddled and blown around by everything. Then the world's a little more peaceful.
Man: That's really interesting. I never thought about it before.
"His mind is not chaotic or scattered. It is neither turbid or base. His mind has only a single condition: it is Wholesome, still and fixed...His mind Is good at dwelling in peace." -- Avatamsaka sutra "Ten transferences chapter" "Form itself is emptiness, Emptiness itself is form." -- Prajna Paramita sutra
Heng Sure
THE DHARMA PROTECTOR SPEAKS
"Here we are in the middle of the sutra-it's all around us and we can't see it. Our teacher does everything to get us to wake up and we still stumble on, unaware of the totality of states. It's all there within the sutra, the entirety of the mind. But the only way to reach it is by practicing perfect virtue.
"ch'an is the highest form of martial arts. You didn't make any mistakes. Self-defense is needed only when you've made a mistake and you have to fight your karma.
"Martial arts make you feel good, but I feel best after a good, hard period of ch'an. Plus when you get good, you can be comfortable and totally free. You'll never see smiles on martial artists the way you will on ch'an person."
"The bodhisattva considers and contem- plates all sounds... He is skillful in his awareness of the marks of sounds... He knows that all sounds do not exist, in fact, they cannot be gotten at." -- Avatamsaka sutra "Ten practices chapter"